Power Standards Lab, a privately-held company that performs research projects with the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Labs, plans to measure the effects of the eclipse using precision grid instruments.

When cyber-hackers overtook parts of Ukraine’s electricity grid last December, plunging more than 200,000 people into darkness, the unprecedented attack sent utility companies everywhere scrambling to address long-standing vulnerabilities in their own power systems. While utilities carefully monitor technological conditions in the big transmission lines that connect power plants to substations, the surveillance of their distribution grids that light up homes is much shakier.

Power quality expert Alex McEachern­ set out to build an advanced power sensor for utility distribution grids, and he accidentally ended up producing a promising tool to protect power grids from cyberattack.

With aging infrastructure and renewables joining the supply network, the stability of the electric grid is becoming more and more unpredictable. This reality is affecting plants and manufacturing facilities across the country, causing particularly bad headaches for facilities maintenance supervisors and electrical engineers who manage power-sensitive equipment.